Chapter 272: The Awakening of the Gun-Fist!

Symphogear wielders—why not just call them magical girls? Or, aside from the name, is there a decisive difference between them and other types of magical girls?

The transformation attire?

The power of their strikes?

The heart of a guardian?

No! None of those!

Although they perform excellently in these areas, the magical girl market is so crowded, yet Symphogear wielders still manage to carve out their own path—by beating people up while belting out songs!

In this world, there is no human capable of singing normally while engaged in high-intensity combat... but then again, it's hard to call a Symphogear wielder a normal human anyway.

When they transform, they must perform a ritual known as the 【Saint-Chant】!

It is a short, melodic, spell-like phrase that a Symphogear wielder must chant while equipping their gear. The lyrics, like those of a Swan Song, are in an unknown language, but they always contain the name of the relic fragment.

The Saint-Chant cannot be memorized; it surfaces directly from the wielder's heart. It is, in other words—the cry of the soul!

"But..."

Even so, being suddenly asked to sing, and to sing a song from the heart at that, left Tachibana Hibiki completely at a loss.

"But I... I can't sing it..."

Never mind lyrics suddenly appearing in her heart, she hadn't even felt any special power from the "relic fragment that had fused with her." It felt like nothing more than a piece of metal, as ordinary as could be.

And since it wasn't a life-or-death situation, wasn't this asking the impossible?

"Very well."

Jia Ji nodded as if suddenly enlightened, his smile vanishing to be replaced by a serious expression.

He immediately swung his arms, raising a fist the size of a sandbag, aiming it at the girl who looked incredibly fragile standing before him.

"You... what are you doing?!"

"Don't you understand? For humans, the most important thing is 'that which can shake the marrow of the brain'!"

Since she couldn't awaken under normal circumstances, he would create a scene for her where she had no choice but to awaken—a scene that would make her brain tremble.

Joy, sorrow, anger, love, pain... and that uncontrollable sense of crisis humans feel when their lives are threatened! The fear of death!

"So, grit your teeth—"

A fierce, unsettling murderous aura radiated from Jia Ji's eyes, and his terrifying expression made the thirteen-year-old middle school girl's spine chill and her heart quail.

"Bang————!"

A massive explosive sound, like a gunshot, rang out instantly.

This punch carried a terrifying feeling, like a surging thunderbolt or a roaring tsunami. If anyone were watching from the side, they would feel the world spinning, as if a flash of light had suddenly appeared to tear space apart, as if this incredible brute force were about to split the world itself.

The leaves on the surrounding trees withered one by one at a visible speed before the wind of the punch even touched them, as if they had been "killed" in advance.

And what of Tachibana Hibiki, who was facing this mid-level straight punch head-on?

——Ah, help!

She wanted to scream that at the top of her lungs, but she couldn't; she didn't even have time to let out a cry of agony.

Her throat went dry, her pupils constricted, her heartbeat stopped, her face turned pale... at that moment, only one thought filled the girl's mind.

I'm going to die! I'm absolutely going to die!

She had no doubt that in a single instant, her life would be taken away just like that.

It was impossible to dodge that punch!

A sense of suffocation, a sense of drowning, a sense of electric shock… In an instant, all the lethal sensations capable of making one's nerves explode pierced into her brain marrow like red-hot iron pillars simultaneously. The chaotic despair made her unable to help but close her eyes.

Why did this happen to her?

Why her, of all people?

Why did it have to be her?

"Open your eyes! Don't give up on living!"

The voice of Kazanari Tsubasa suddenly echoed in her ears.

And the most instinctive human desire to survive began to surge, intensify, and explode!

A massive emotion began to well up from the deepest part of her heart—it was the emotion known as "anger." Her golden eyes gradually began to shift toward a blood-red hue, and the girl's panicked, bloodless face was covered by a faint blackness.

Like a provoked beast, she let out a low growl as her teeth ground together, and a sound like shattering glass suddenly rang out.

——At that very moment,

"Gun-Fist: Gungnir" was activated!

【Balwisyallnescellgungnirtron】

There was no room for thought, she wasn't even conscious of it, but... the Saint-Chant unique to Tachibana Hibiki began to echo all around.

The cross-shaped wound on Hibiki's chest radiated a bright orange light that reached toward the sky. It was terrifyingly hot, and a massive power like a tsunami began to spread outward with her at the center. The trees in the entire park began to tremble as if swept by an invisible force.

The orange radiance enveloped her body. This thing, which originally had no physical form, solidified into shape in a split second to counter the pressure surging from the front, hardening from pure light into a suit of angular battle armor.

A suit of hard armor encased the girl's upper body. The main color scheme was a tight-fitting suit of orange and white. She wore headphone-like headgear, with two sharp white spikes extending diagonally upward from the left and right. A blade-like collar split at her neck, her fists were covered in black gloves, and her feet were covered in pitch-black combat boots.

But most eye-catching of all were the cylindrical white armor pieces on her forearms, which were filled with a strange mechanical feel; one could feel the surging, boundless power hidden within them.

Her presence swelled. Her blood-red eyes stared fixedly at the fist "bombarding" toward her, and her face, now a terrifying black, let out a roar like a trapped beast, as if she had lost her sanity.

"Ugh, ahhhhhhh——!!"

Then, the girl's pitch-black combat boots stomped forward! With that step, the ground cracked inch by inch as if crushed by a steamroller, and a massive depression appeared, with cracks spreading out like a spiderweb.

The armor on her arms popped out at high speed, emitting a metallic explosive sound. Her black-gloved fists clenched tight, her muscles tensed, and with unprecedented force, she unleashed a full-power strike!

"Boom——!"

The moisture in the air touched the front of the fist, which had broken the sound barrier, causing the moisture to condense into rings of white air waves that appeared on her arm, like a shot from a mortar.

Seeing the Symphogear girl who had not only succeeded in transforming but seemed to have entered a "blackened" state, Jia Ji panicked slightly.

"Ha... is this effect a bit too good?"

But, since things had come to this, he might as well blast her down!

Accompanied by the girl's roar, two fists of unequal size, carrying whistling gales, collided fiercely in mid-air.

(End of chapter)